By Heather Mustain
Every year on the first Sunday of October, Christians in congregations around the world celebrate World Communion Sunday. We gather around the Lord’s Table remembering something that can be easy to forget: The church is bigger than us.
World Communion Sunday began in 1933 at Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, where the Rev. Dr. Hugh Thomson Kerr was pastor. Kerr and the congregation’s Division of Stewardship envisioned a service that could bring churches together in an expression of Christian unity — helping congregations recognize how deeply interconnected they were with one another.
Communion has never simply been about what we receive. It is also about recognizing that we belong to one another. When Paul challenges the Corinthians about their practice of Communion, his concern is not merely whether they are observing the ritual correctly. Some are eating and drinking while others go hungry. For Paul, this contradicts the very meaning of Communion: We cannot claim to share one table while ignoring the needs of those at the table with us.
And perhaps that history and scriptural example gives us an important way to think about generosity, a thematic element that will be woven into all our services this month.
Generosity is not simply something we do after Communion. Generosity is part of what Communion means. When we come to the table, we are reminded that God’s abundance is not intended to stop with us. We receive bread so that we might become people who share bread. We receive grace so that we might extend grace. We receive love so that we might become more generous with our love, our resources, our time, our attention and our lives.
On World Communion Sunday, we remember Christians gathering around tables separated by oceans, cultures, languages, denominations and traditions. Yet we gather around the same Christ.
And if we truly believe that we are connected to one another, then generosity becomes more than charity.
It becomes Communion.
There is room at God’s Table.
There is enough bread.
There is enough grace.
There is enough love.
There is enough.